NY's gas ban is regressive, Puerto Rico needs nuclear, & Cormorants!
New Forbes article and Power Brief on NYC's nat gas ban, nuclear in Puerto Rico, and Double-crested Cormorants as fish-birds
After a couple of months of travel, I’m happily back in Austin until mid-January. Not bragging here, but since late September, I've been in ND, MT, Houston, OK, AR, FL, PA, DC, Odessa, CO, IN, Houston, and CA. I get tired just recounting the list. Don't get me wrong. I love what I do. But I also know I don't/can't write much while traveling, so being back in my office has allowed me to catch up on my writing. This week, I wrote a couple of pieces that are now awaiting publication. I’ve also been lining up podcasts and prioritizing my writing projects. As you know, there is a ton of energy-releated news happening including the deepening energy crisis in Europe which got even worse yesterday when France’s EDF shut down two nuclear power plants. The result was yet another spike in European electricity prices.
As I made clear in my November 16 testimony before the Senate ENR Committee, the U.S. must not follow Europe’s lead on energy and climate policy. I will be writing more about Europe. But this week, I’ve been focusing on rare-earth elements, offshore wind, and as you’ll see below, bans on natural gas. Four items today:
Jesus Nuñez talks nuclear in Puerto Rico
New Power Brief on NYC’s gas ban
Cormorants at Barton Springs
The photo of the Double-crested Cormorant above was taken in Florida in 2011 by Dick Daniels.
This morning, I dashed off a new piece for Forbes about New York’s ban on natural gas in new buildings. As you may recall, I’ve been writing about this misguided policy for more than a year. Here’s how I began the Forbes piece:
On Wednesday, the New York City Council voted to ban the use of natural gas in new buildings. The move makes New York the biggest city in America to ban or restrict the use of natural gas for cooking and heating. City Council Speaker Corey Johnson said the ban was justified because “we are in a climate crisis and must take all necessary steps to fight climate change and protect our city.” But the hard reality is that the ban will act as a regressive energy tax on the poor and middle class. In addition to making energy less affordable, it will reduce the resilience and reliability of the energy network in America’s biggest city.
I continued:
These bans are terrible public policy. By restricting the use of natural gas, these bans are reducing our energy security and societal resilience. As I wrote on this site back in February during the deadly blizzard that caused widespread blackouts in Texas and left some 700 people dead, attempting to “electrify everything” will reduce our society’s resilience and lead to what could be a catastrophic failure.
I also explained that recent data from the EIA shows that an average household in the northeastern U.S. will pay about $1,538 to heat their home this winter with electricity while homes that heat with gas will pay about $865.
In other words, at a stroke, the New York City Council passed a measure that will nearly double winter heating costs for residents of the city. And yet, the media coverage of the ban focused almost solely on the climate issue. A New York Times story on the ban carried the headline “N.Y.C.’s Gas Ban Takes Fight Against Climate Change to the Kitchen.” It did not have a single mention of direct energy costs to consumers...The proliferation of these bans on natural gas shows how shortsighted policymakers can be when it comes to our energy and power systems. The Texas Blackouts proved that we need diverse and resilient energy networks that can deliver huge quantities of energy during extreme weather events. As I explained during Winter Storm Uri, “the natural gas network is essential because it can deliver big surges in energy supplies during periods of peak demand. In January 2019, U.S. natural gas demand set a record of 145 billion cubic feet per day. That record will be smashed during this blizzard, and daily volumes will exceed 150 Bcf. That is an enormous amount of energy. In fact, on the coldest days of winter, the amount of energy delivered by the gas grid is roughly three times as great as the energy consumed during the hottest days of the summer.”
Again, here’s a link to the article.
Jesus Nuñez: Puerto Rico needs "dense and resilient" power generation
I’ve only been to Puerto Rico once. In 2018, I went to the island to shoot interviews for Juice. We got to San Juan about six months after the island was hammered by Hurricane Maria. You can see excerpts of those interviews here, here, and here.
Since that visit, I’ve had a special affection for the island territory which has been plagued by a badly run electric grid for decades. For that reason, I wanted to talk to Jesus Nuñez, the CEO and co-founder of the Nuclear Alternative Project, a non-profit group that is promoting the use of nuclear energy on the island. Last year, Nuñez and his colleagues published a paper that found that 94% of the island's residents are interested in exploring the use of nuclear. He explained the high interest was likely due to the island’s tattered grid and expensive electricity. Puerto Rico generates about 98% of its electricity from imported fossil fuels, and its power plants experience outage rates 12 times higher than the U.S. average. More recently, the NAP got a $1.6 million grant from the Department of Energy to study the siting of small reactors in Puerto Rico.
High power prices matter in Puerto Rico because some 43% of Puerto Ricans are living in poverty. The median household income is about $20,500, which is less than a third of the US average. During the podcast, Nuñez explained that due to frequent hurricanes and the island's high population density, Puerto Rico needs “dense and resilient” forms of power generation. A few small nuclear reactors would clearly fit that need. It was an interesting conversation. Give it a listen.
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New Power Brief on NYC's gas bans
Yesterday, I spent a few minutes recording a new Power Brief to talk about the new natural gas ban in New York City. As I’ve explained before, I can talk faster than I can write, so I did a video that's slightly less than four minutes. I talked about some of the issues I discussed in my Forbes piece on the same matter. Have a look/listen.
Cormorants are a "fish-bird"
Double-crested Cormorants (Nannopterum auritum) are ungainly fliers. They don’t generally fly very far or very fast. But once they hit the water, they become a different type of animal. Yes, they are still birds. But once in the water, they become an amalgam of air and water, or as I thought about it when I saw a cormorant feeding in Barton Springs Pool on Tuesday, they are transformed into a fish-bird. Cormorants are very common here in Austin. I see them frequently at Barton Springs and around Lady Bird Lake.
Unlike ducks and geese, they sit very low in the water, with most of their body below the surface. (The photo of the Cormorant just above was taken in 2015 by Rennett Stowe.) I’ve watched them while swimming at Barton Springs. They are more agile under the water than they are above it. They use their feet for propulsion and while swimming under the surface, they vaguely resemble one of those old lawn darts that got banned because they were so dangerous. One source says they can dive to a depth of 1.5–7.5 meters and can stay underwater for a minute. In my observations, they only stay under for maybe 30 seconds or so. Allaboutbirds.org says this about the bird:
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The gangly Double-crested Cormorant is a prehistoric-looking, matte-black fishing bird with yellow-orange facial skin. Though they look like a combination of a goose and a loon, they are relatives of frigatebirds and boobies and are a common sight around fresh and salt water across North America—perhaps attracting the most attention when they stand on docks, rocky islands, and channel markers, their wings spread out to dry.
Wikipedia describes it this way:
an all-black bird which gains a small double crest of black and white feathers in breeding season. It has a bare patch of orange-yellow facial skin. Five subspecies are recognized. It mainly eats fish and hunts by swimming and diving. Its feathers, like those of all cormorants, are not waterproof and it must spend time drying them out after spending time in the water.
Have a good weekend.
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